Blame It On The Alcohol
by zimbardooo
Summary: There are several cardinal rules of sleeping around, the biggest being 'never stay the night'. Santana smashes them all to pieces the morning she wakes up in a stranger's bed.
1. There's a Stranger in my Bed

Santana's brain does not function first thing in the morning.

Normally it takes an hour and at least three cups of steaming hot coffee before she is alert enough to string together a coherent sentence. It's usually another hour and two more coffees before she can hurl insults with anything near her famed viciousness- and that's on a good day.

On waking today however, she finds that by some miracle of nature her brain has managed to scrape together enough awareness to register one conscious thought:

_Pain._

Her eyes flicker open and she regrets it immediately. The light that hits them is bright, too bright, blindingly bright _oh God make it stop_. It's as if there is a spotlight fixed on her, one of those awful stage lights that make her skin look blotchy and her face harrowed. It's everywhere and it's spinning and _wow, that shouldn't even be possible_.

It's all downhill from there.

Letting out a muffled groan she rolls over to bury her face in her pillow, desperately seeking an escape from the unnatural light that the room seems to be radiating, and notices two things.

One, her skull feels like it has shattered into a million tiny fragments that have embedded themselves into her brain and are prickling against the backs of her eyeballs.

And two, this isn't her pillow.

She freezes instantly mid-roll. Slowly, cautiously, she lowers her nose to the pillow and takes a tentative sniff. And there it is.

That scent- crisp, fresh linen with a hint of cologne and that faint musky smell that comes from hours of close contact with a human body. Another human body.

_This isn't her bed._

_She has just woken up in someone else's bed._

She sits bolt upright, ignoring the splitting pain in her head that reaches a blinding intensity as her body protests the sudden movement.

_Think, Santana._

Taking a deep breath, she closes her eyes again and massages her temple, trying to block out the pain long enough to remember-

_Flashing lights. Sweaty bodies. Singing. Laughter. _

She remembers a party.

* * *

_Steph, I see your early morning Westana phone call, and raise you an early morning Westana hangover. For everyone else's benefit, WESTANA IS PERFECTION and if Ryan Murphy et al. won't write them, I sure as hell will._

_To clarify, this story is set the year before Season 1, during Santana's freshman year. I have a pretty good idea of where this is all going, but reviews and feedback are always appreciated. Thanks for reading (:_


	2. There's a Pounding in my Head

"Get out here, Wes! It's already seven, they'll be showing up any minute now!"

Evie's voice echoes through the hallways of the house, finally reaching Wes as he is attempting to squeeze a final tray of drinks into the fridge.

"Alright, alright, I'm coming!"

Finally managing to wedge the tray in far enough to close the door, Wes straightens up and surveys the kitchen before heading in the direction of his sister's voice. Passing through the cavernous living room, he pauses to take in the extent of their work.

The place is barely recognisable as their normally stately home. Evie had rushed them home straight after the competition to cram in a few last minute preparations, and while he wishes he could have hung around with the rest of his teammates he has to admit that they have done a spectacular job. He turns slowly on the spot, his gaze flickering between the room's various features.

The house is decked with streamers in the Dalton colours of navy blue and red, and golden balloons are bobbing around on the ceiling, glimmering in the light like bubbles. Through the archway to the next room a table is only just visible, buried beneath plates and plates of food, while another table laden with drinks stands opposite.

All the breakables, the mementos, the souvenirs, the personal effects, have been hidden away for the night, and although Wes is relieved that their embarrassing baby photos are safely out of sight he can't help but feel a little unsettled at how impersonal the place looks. The whole thing feels somewhat foreign, as if they're putting on a production and pretending to live other people's lives for a night, and there's something about it that doesn't sit quite right with him.

The ringing doorbell breaks through his meditation and he jumps, startled. His shin collides painfully with the leg of the table he had been leaning against and he lets out a yelp, hopping on one foot as he rubs the skin where he knows a bruise will be forming.

Seconds later Evie comes dashing into the room as well as she can in the shoes she is wearing, summoned by his cry of pain. She skids to a halt in front of him, shooting him a dirty look as she realises the lack of issue that has brought her there. She opens her mouth to berate him but he cuts her off before she can get the words out.

"Is it too late to call the whole thing off?" he asks anxiously.

"Don't you dare, Wesley Hughes," she scowls, already turning to leave the room. "There are people waiting outside as we speak. You are _not _doing this now."

"No, it's just- are you sure about this?" he blurts out, tugging nervously at his collar.

Evie pauses halfway to the door and turns back to answer him, her face softening as she notices his worried expression.

"Positive," she reassures him. "Everything will be fine. Better than fine, it'll be great." When he only continues to fidget with the hem of his shirt, she sighs and crosses the room to stand before him.

"Trust me," she says gently. "We've been planning this for ages. Mother and Father will be in Europe for another week, and Allie's away on camp til Tuesday. We've gone through everything that could possibly happen. Nothing is going to go wrong."

He's sure that her words are meant to be comforting, but right now he's having a hard time getting them to sink in. "But what if they don't like it? What if it's a total failure and everyone ends up hating me?"

The doorbell rings again, but Evie ignores it.

"They're your friends, Wes. They'll like you regardless." She steps forward, restraightening his shirt for him. After a second's thought, she undoes the top two buttons and gestures for him to roll up his sleeves. "But after tonight, they're going to love you." She steps back again, surveying her handiwork with a critical eye.

"I still don't know-"

"Wes," she interrupts him, the sentimentality abruptly evaporating from her tone. "You are _not_ backing out of this now. We've worked like slaves getting this organized, and furthermore-"

She holds up a hand, cutting off his renewed protests before he has even spoken.

"-I have it on good authority that you're being considered for the Warbler council next year. So don't screw this up, Wes, for both of our sakes."

Before he has time to react she has moved off, crossing the atrium while he is still processing her words. A wall of noise hits him as she flicks the switch on the sound system and throws the front doors open, her voice barely audible over the music as she calls out in greeting to the mob of boys swarming into the house.

* * *

She was at the party to forget. In hindsight she would shake her head at the irony, if it wasn't already splitting from the hangover.. And now that she thinks about it, that's pretty odd in itself.

Santana is no stranger to drinking. She's had her fair share of hangovers before, but none of them have been anywhere near as bad as this one. _Which means_, she deduces slowly, her brain protesting the effort of thought, _that she must have been drinking a hell of a lot more than usual._

She doesn't expect to remember the specifics, and so she is shocked when it comes back with startling clarity.

_Three jelly shots, red, yellow, green, the sickly sweet taste and bright colours burnt into her memory like traffic lights. A swig of vodka from a bottle someone passes her. Two tequila shots that burn all the way down, and around midnight a glass of champagne (because apparently this is a fancy party that she's crashed)._

She remembers the Lopez family cure-all: alcohol.

* * *

Evie is right, not that he'll ever admit it to her. After an hour of hovering around, anxiously checking and rechecking their preparations, David materialises at his side.

"Come on," the younger boys grins at him, his teeth gleaming white in the dark room. "Stop fussing and enjoy yourself!"

Wes finds himself being pulled onto the makeshift dance floor, where a crowd has already begun to form. The Warblers, riding the glorious high of their victory at Sectionals, have invited everyone they know and many more who they don't. The house is already teeming with not only the singers and their classmates, but also girlfriends, students from the neighbouring schools, friends of friends, siblings, cousins.

He spots his sister over at the drinks table, surrounded by a cluster of her own friends and laughing raucously at something one of them has just said. She catches his eye and winks, and he wonders briefly if she was the one to make David drag him out to socialise. It seems like the sort of thing she'd do, especially as David has been under her spell ever since they met. Wes can only hope that Evie sticks to using her freshman-manipulating powers for good, because the alternative is frankly terrifying.

He makes to approach her, but her eyes go wide and she waves him frantically away. He continues undeterred; before he can reach her, however, he is intercepted by Raymond, a senior Warbler and the current Council head.

Remembering what Evie had said, he hoists a smile onto his face as the older boy presses a glass of something- _single malt whiskey, if his memory serves him correctly-_ into his hand, skipping over a formal greeting in favour of slinging an arm casually around Wes' shoulder.

"Wesss," he slurs, grinning at him lopsidedly as if he is the most fascinating person in the world. "Awesome party, man, s'really great! Keep this up and that Council spot is yours for sure!"

Wes can't help but to laugh at the absurdity of Raymond's drunken antics. A second later he freezes up, worried that he has done the wrong thing. _What if he's offended? What if he hates me? What if I've just ruined everything, Evie will be furious.._ In the next moment his fears are relieved as Raymond laughs too, laughs as if he knows what he is thinking and finds it hilarious. With a last friendly smile and a pat on the shoulder he wanders off into the crowd, and Wes can breathe freely again.

It gets easier, he discovers as he finds himself being pulled into yet another discussion of the minutiae of their most recent success. The whiskey seems to help, and so he has another- just enough to get a pleasant buzz going without becoming totally wasted.

Feeling emboldened by the party's success, or perhaps just by the alcohol, Wes even dares to suggest an impromptu rendition of their winning performance, and is rewarded by a hearty clap on the back and some slurred words of praise from Raymond. Their coordination has deteriorated since that afternoon, but he can hardly find it in him to care. Besides, it's not like anyone else is sober enough to notice..

He would never have expected to relax now, with all the anxieties from tonight's preparations combining with the very real, very immediate reality of the chaotic celebrations around him. And yet in this moment, Wes feels freer than he has in months.

* * *

The room is starting to spin again. Santana gropes around blindly, not even knowing what she is feeling for, and her hand connects with a desk. Focusing hard, she can get the world to stay still long enough for her to register the tablets lying on the table next to a glass of water. _Sweet merciful Jesus, Panadol._

Her vision clears; the ache in her head recedes a little. Replacing the glass on the table, she finds she does not even need to have to strain for the ensuing memories as they are now surfacing unprompted, uninvited, unwelcome.

She remembers the words, callous, cold, deliberate.

_Slut. Tease. Whore._

They are much fainter than yesterday, as if they were coming from a long way away. She is numb to them now, but she can remember all too clearly the way they had cut through her defences the night before, making her recoil as if physically burned, their sharpness neither dulled by the alcohol nor drowned out by the pounding music. The same three words, playing over and over in her head:

_Slut. Tease. Whore._

_No matter how she hard she tries, no matter how much she drinks or how close to the deafening speakers she stands, she can't seem to escape those words. At last it all becomes too much and she has to flee, abandoning whoever it was that she had been dancing with and elbowing her way out of the room without a backwards glance. _

_She doesn't know where she's going; only that she needs to get away from the people, the suffocating crowd, the overly bright lights and the overly loud laughter. She doesn't know if she's been running for one minute or thirty, only that she finally finds herself sinking to her knees, out of breath but out of there and that's all that matters, really._

_Staring wildly around her, she takes in the shadows of the neatly manicured shrubs surrounding her, the feel of the soft grass beneath her, the sound of running water audible over the distant noise of the party. _

She remembers a garden.

* * *

It is three in the morning by the time Wes manages to clear the last of the drunken stragglers out of the house. The ground floor resembles a disaster zone more than a residence, but he figures that's tomorrow's problem.

The other Warblers have long since dragged themselves upstairs and into the multitude of spare rooms to pass out, and he is the only one left awake now. Losing the fight against the urge to yawn, he gives in to his fatigue and trudges wearily upstairs, dragging his feet on the carpet as he goes because he is just that tired. Still, as he passes the rooms where his teammates have collapsed, he takes a moment to peek around the doorways and check that the occupants are still breathing, and not lying unconscious in a pool of their own vomit.

Satisfied that his friends are still alive- _some rather vigorously so, if the noises coming from behind the closed doors he bypasses are anything to go by_- he finally allows himself to make his way back to his own bedroom. The atmosphere of the party (or at least, the alcohol) has been strong enough to ward off most of his anxieties, but still he feels that a last cursory glance out the window as he undresses is required to reassure him that all is well.

The clusters of cars have vanished from the street, leaving only the Warbler bus parked out of sight in the garage. The branches of the trees lining the driveway sway gently in the breeze, their leaves glowing a ghostly green in the moonlight. The waters of the ornamental pond ripple slightly near the bridge that stretches over it, leading to the tiny sequestered garden where-

Halfway through surveying the grounds Wes does a double take, rubbing his eyes and hoping that the shadowy figure lurking behind the bushes is just his mind playing tricks on him. _No such luck. _When he looks again, nothing has changed; the person lingering in the garden is just as present, just as visible, just as real as when he had first spotted them, and doesn't seem to be going anywhere any time soon.

He toys briefly with the idea of leaving them be, but even as he considers this idea he is moving away from the window, already padding out of the room and heading in the direction of the stairs. He can only hope that whoever it is will go quietly- _though considering his luck_, he thinks, sighing as he crosses the darkened atrium to reach the door, _he had better prepare for the worst._

* * *

She was sitting in a bush. What was she doing in a bush? God, she wasn't- _was she_? She knows she isn't a particularly classy drunk, but she never thought she was _that _bad..

Santana reaches up to her head cautiously- the throbbing has subsided, and she doesn't want to risk making it worse again- and runs her hand warily through her hair.

Nothing. No leaves, no sticks, no spiderwebs. No sex hair. She drops her hand, stumped. So that ruled out a romp in the bushes, probably, but gave no clue as to what had actually happened.

Focusing hard, she racks her brain for memories from the garden.

_The gentle whisper of the breeze through the bushes. Pull yourself together, Lopez, why the hell are you crying? The faint sounds of drunken laughter floating across the grounds. Shut up, someone will hear you. The crunch of pebbles as someone approaches, and the rustle of fabric as they drop to the ground beside her. Now you're in for it. Come on now. Look up. Face the music._

_Dark eyes, dark hair, and a low voice made just that tiny bit rough by alcohol._

She remembers a boy.

* * *

_Happy Birthday Steph! Here, have some partially undressed Wes ;D_

_Apparently I have this problem with short chapters where my brain explodes and suddenly they're six pages long, so the rest (two more chapters, probably) will be around this length. Once my exams are over. Okay yes good back to studying hair cells. Thanks for reading (:_


	3. Trying to Connect the Dots

"Hey there, stargazer."

Wes hesitates for a second, then drops to the ground to sit on the grass beside the stranger in his garden. From up close, it is obvious that the straggler is female- the way her dress clings tightly to every curve makes that abundantly clear- and at least halfway gone if the empty bottle by her feet is any indication. She looks older than him in that age-defying way girls at parties have, but there's something about the way she is sitting, huddled into herself with her arms wrapped around her knees, that makes her seem years younger.

For once in his life, Wes finds he doesn't quite know what to think.

The girl's eyes flicker sideways to look at him, but otherwise she gives no indication that she has noticed his arrival. Sighing, he tries again.

"Did you have a good night?"

Again there is no reply, but he notices the corners of the girl's lips playing up in the ghost of a smile. He is temporarily distracted by staring at them, and it is a moment before he recovers enough to continue.

"I don't think I've seen you around here before." Too late he realises how this must sound, but he ploughs on regardless. "I'm Wes."

The girl turns her head to look at him properly for the first time, and he notices that her vague smile has developed into a lopsided smirk.

"Wes," she repeats softly. He is suddenly struck by how _right_ his name sounds coming from her lips and _wow_, _he must be more drunk than he thought._

It isn't until much later that he realises that she never offers her own name.

* * *

There had been a boy in that bush with her. A pretty cute one too, if she remembers correctly- black hair, deliberately messy, an easy-going smile and a warm body that was perfect for snuggling up to. Wait, _what?_

She can only remember fragments- stumbling up stairs, tugging off clothes, hands running over bare skin- then nothing.

_Oh no. Oh, no, no, no.._

It's not the possibility of having screwed a stranger that bothers her, because God knows she's done that before. But staying the night is a mistake she made once before and swore never to make again.

Something about this feels different to last time though, something about this feels safe somehow.. Which is silly, because she doesn't know, she doesn't know _him_.

_She doesn't know him. Who is this guy anyway?_

She strains to recall something, anything, but her brain seems to have worn itself out and is refusing to yield any more clues. She buries her head in her hands, massaging her temples as if trying to physically draw the information out, finally pulling at her hair in frustration- but it's no use.

She remembers nothing.

* * *

Wes can't say exactly how long they've been there- half an hour, an hour maybe?- just sitting there, talking about everything and nothing. Well, he's been talking anyway; she hasn't said anything since repeating his name all that time ago.

Sometimes he could swear she isn't even listening to him. She never looks directly at him but every now and then she'll nod slightly, or he'll catch her lips twisting in response to something he's said, and it's enough to reassure him to continue.

He's given up on trying to drop hints about her leaving. Actually, he's not sure he wants her to any more. There's something strangely liberating about talking to a complete stranger, something oddly therapeutic about being able to say whatever comes to his mind.

At some point while Wes was rambling she had shifted to lie on her back on the ground and he joins her now, stretching out and staring up at the clear night sky.

"I was really worried about tonight," he confesses suddenly. Out of the corner of his eye, he catches a glimpse of a dark brow rising inquiringly, prompting him to elaborate.

"I don't know, I was just terrified that everything would go wrong. Like it would turn out to be a total disaster and everyone would hate it, or someone would get high and burn the house down, or that it would somehow start a zombie apocalypse-"

He is cut off by a loud, undignified snort from the girl beside him. He turns his head to find her lips pressed tightly together, twisting under the apparent effort of restraining her amusement at his words. Affronted, his elbow shoots out on instinct to catch her in the side, and it seems to be all the encouragement she needs. In the next moment she is doubled up on the ground, laughing hysterically and gasping for breath.

Wes freezes for a moment in shock, caught somewhere between offence and bemusement, with no idea of how to respond. Luckily, the girl is far too preoccupied to notice.

"_Zombie_- _apocalypse_-" she chokes out, her body shaking with the force of her laughter, and there is something irresistibly infectious about it, something wild and free one can't help but join in on.

Before he knows what is happening he is laughing too, his quiet chuckle developing into a full-blown laugh that keeps growing, getting louder and stronger until the two of them are rolling around on the ground, clutching at each other like lifelines. They are left almost totally helpless, struggling for breath as their bodies wracked by fits of laughter but it feels good, it feels easy to just let go and laugh at everything, at nothing, at himself and at how ridiculous he was being.

It seems like forever before they come down, their howls of mirth subsiding into a steady hiccoughing chuckle punctuated by the occasional soft giggle, until finally they are lying in silence again. It is a few minutes before he eventually speaks up again.

"I guess it didn't turn out so bad after all, hey?"

No response. He turns to prompt her but the words catch in his throat, because she is already staring back at him; it's like he's seeing her for the first time, and she is _breathtaking_. Not beautiful in the traditional sense of the word- her features are too striking, too shadowy and haunted to fit that mould. But there is something about her- the curve of her lashes, the clean line of the shoulder left bare by her dress, the tilt of her head as she looks away into the distance- that has him captivated.

He could sit there watching her all night, he muses- but she shivers suddenly, breaking the spell, and he realises that she must be freezing in the crisp autumn air.

"Are you cold?" he asks concernedly. "I'll get you something to wear."

He moves to stand up, but her arm shoots out to stop him.

"Don't go," she whispers, her voice barely audible over the murmur of the wind in the trees above.

Her unexpectedly strong grip on his wrist catches him off guard and he lurches sideways, toppling off balance, _falling_. It's as if the earth is rushing up to meet him and her body with it, almost directly beneath him as he comes crashing down. His arms stretch out blindly in an attempt to break the fall, catching him just in time-

Their faces are only inches apart when his hands finally connect with the ground, bringing his body to a jerky, abrupt stop only a split second away from pinning her to the ground. They are so close that he can see himself reflected in her eyes, can feel the warmth of her breath on his face, but if she is at all fazed by their proximity she does not show it. All traces of laughter are gone now as she stares unblinkingly up at him, one eyebrow raised as if challenging him to make the next move.

He can't.

The heat rushes to his face and he breaks eye contact, pushing himself hastily off her and scrambling awkwardly to put some distance between them. She says nothing as he sits down on the grass again, continuing to stare listlessly skywards as if she hasn't even noticed his disappearance.

She doesn't let go of his wrist though; instead her grip loosens, her fingers sliding down his arm until his hand is clasped loosely in hers. The action catches him totally off guard and he freezes up for a moment before forcing himself to relax again.

_She's drunk. It doesn't necessarily mean anything._

None of it does, Wes realises with a funny sinking feeling in his chest. She might not even remember any of this tomorrow. What is he hoping to get out of this anyway?

His train of thought is abruptly derailed when the girl speaks up, voluntarily, for the first time.

"I just don't want to be alone tonight," she tells him in a voice barely above a whisper. As she speaks, the pad of her thumb traces absent-minded circles on his palm, the back of his hand, the pulse point on his wrist, and just that tiny touch is enough that it is as much as he can do to focus silently on her words.

"I thought drinking would help but it didn't, I thought getting out would help but it just made it worse and I can't get his voice out of my head, I just _can't-_"

She breaks off, breathing heavily. Not knowing what else to do, he turns her hand over in his and squeezes it gently. After a moment, she composes herself enough to continue.

"Brit's mad at me," she says dully, her fingers tightening around his for a fraction of a second. He has no idea who she is talking about, but he knows better than to ask. "All I wanted was someone to listen, but she kept going on about her dumb cat and I just snapped and called her stupid and now she's not talking to me. And Jake dumped me, and now I have no-one-"

Wes' mind is racing as he tries to put everything together, a job made considerably harder by the fact that he has never heard of any of the people she's mentioning, and how does he even get himself into these situations?

"How did you end up here?" he asks carefully.

"Puck dropped me off," the girl answers. "He didn't stay, wouldn't care enough to stay even if I asked."

She laughs suddenly, humourlessly, mockingly. "God, I'm so pathetic. No friends, everyone hates me, can't even get home-"

She breaks off abruptly and Wes, looking up, sees that the bitter expression has dropped off her face, replaced by a look of growing horror. A moment later he winces as she grips his hand so tightly that it threatens to cut off the blood supply to his fingers.

"Oh my God," she says softly, staring at him in terror and now he is starting to worry, for both her and his circulation. "He was right, wasn't he?"

He has no idea what she is talking about, but he picks up on the rising note of panic in her voice. Without pausing to think, he reaches out to cover their joined hands with his own free one, gently prising away and uncurling her tightly clenched fingers, smoothing out her palm between his.

It doesn't seem to help much; rather, as her hysteria builds, it's as much as he can do just to hang on to her hand. He watches in horrified fascination as she works herself up into a frenzy, struggling with the demons in her head and clinging to him as if his grip is the only thing tethering her to reality.

She is sitting bolt upright now, gesturing frantically with her free hand, seemingly caught up in a heated argument with herself. Her phrases are fractured, fragmented, disjointed, the words spilling over themselves in their haste to get out; thoughts cut each other off until her speech is nothing more than a jumble of syllables with no coherent meaning.

"But I'm not like that," she burst out suddenly. "I don't want to be like that, I can't be like that. _All I'm good for_- that's crap! I'm good at heaps of stuff, I can cheer, I can dance, I can-"

She breaks off, frowning in concentration as she tries to think of another example, and Wes can see her self-doubt creeping back in even as she shakes her head abruptly and continues.

"And I have friends!" she defends hotly. "I don't need anyone but I have them, even if Brit's not talking to me and Puck's left town, I still have- still have-"

He can see where this is going even before she realises it herself. He hates that it's happening, hates the way her words falter and then die, hates that he has to sit there and watch her free hand grasp at the air, reaching for someone but finding no-one there. It doesn't surprise him when she slumps suddenly as if all the fight has been drained out of her, but that doesn't make it any easy to take.

"It's true," she says hollowly. "He was right, that was all I was good for, and now I'm useless, worthless, alone-"

She breaks off again, wiping her eyes inelegantly with the back of her free hand. He wants to say something, knows he should say something to deny it, to reassure her- but he can't. He opens his mouth but no words come out; he is left staring dumbly at her, still clutching stupidly at her hand.

Her eyes snap suddenly back to him, desperate, searching.

"It's true. I'm alone, aren't I? Jake dumped me, Brit's mad, Puck's gone-"

Not knowing what to say he squeezes her hand tighter, hoping that it will comfort her somehow. Her stare drops to their intertwined fingers, but her expression doesn't change.

"Everyone leaves me," she says numbly, turning her gaze back to his face. "Are you going to leave me too?"

Her voice is soft and resigned; she looks so vulnerable, so desperately alone that he couldn't leave her if he tried, and damned if his heart isn't breaking over a girl he's only just met.

"No," he tells her finally. "I'm not going anywhere."

It's hard not to be affected by the way her eyes light up at his words, hard not to be captivated by the trusting look that spreads across her features. He realises that he is staring again and drops his gaze with a sigh, pushing himself to his feet.

"Come on," he says, using his grip on her hand to pull her up with him. She stumbles and he ducks under her flailing arms, slipping an arm around her waist to steady her.

"Let's get you inside."

* * *

_And finally, she updates! Very belatedly though; this chapter just wouldn't end, so I ended up splitting it. And though I did manage to get about 85% written while I was away, I forgot that the most time-consuming, frustrating part is writing that last 15% that refuses to come out right and aoirhpvowhuaoirhjpvjwaoe[avjawew._

_At this point I should probably clarify that I have never been drunk or hungover. Ever. The entirety of my experience with alcohol consists of looking after vomiting drunks at summer music festivals, so if I've gotten anything wrong please let me know! (ff's new system makes leaving comments and reviews twice as easy.. just putting that out there :P)_

_Thanks for reading (:_


	4. Think We Kissed but I Forgot

_What Wes is wearing is more like a wifebeater/singlet, but I have this irrational thing against both those words so I've just called it an undershirt. But that's what it is, in my head._

* * *

She can't remember.

She can't remember, and this terrifies her.

She straightens up again, staring wildly around the room for anything that might trigger her memory. A photo standing on the bedside table catches her eye and she snatches it up to get a better look. A group of boys around her own age beam up at her from the frame where they are caught in a huddle, but it is an Asian boy on the right side who catches her eye. He is bent double, mouth hanging open mid-laugh and she knows, she knows that it is _him_.

He looks familiar- _hell, they all look familiar_- and that worries her. Because sure, they _could_ be strangers she'd run into just last night- but there's no way to be sure, no way of knowing that they aren't McKinley randoms who she passes every day in the corridors- who she could run into tomorrow..

She stares hard at the photo, trying to place him, but the longer she looks the more familiar he seems and _God, how did you get yourself into this mess?_

He doesn't look _that_ familiar, Santana finally decides. She _probably _hadn't met him before last night. So with any luck, everything would be fine and they could all forget about the past twenty-four hours and move on with their lives.

But probably just isn't good enough. She has to be sure, she has to know that there's no way this can get out of hand. She can't lose control of this, not now, not ever.

She has to get out of here.

Pushing the covers aside, she scrambles to her feet and is struck immediately by the cold and- _wait a second_. _Those aren't her clothes she's wearing._

Instead of the low-backed scarlet dress she had worn the night before, she is dressed in a jumble of mismatched, ill-fitting clothes- _guys' clothes_- and with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, she realises that things are a lot worse than she'd thought.

_How could she have missed that before? And what else has she been missing?_

* * *

It's slow progress getting her inside. She is leaning heavily on him, tripping slightly over her towering heels (frankly, he's surprised that she can walk in them at all), throwing him off balance as they move unsteadily through the house. Their movements are uncoordinated, and more than once they stagger into a wall with a crash that Wes worries will wake the others.

They are already halfway up the stairs when he remembers that there are no more spare rooms, but there's no time to deliberate now. Making a split-second decision, he steadies her as she stumbles onto the landing before half supporting, half carrying her down the hallway to his own room.

As he turns to close the door behind them, her knees seem to give way and she slips out of his arms, missing the bed entirely and plummeting to the ground beside it. Biting back a sigh, he locks the door out of habit before hurrying over to pull her into a sitting position. Instead of releasing him, however, she lets out a low hum of contentment, settling into the crook of his arm and leaning her head against his shoulder. She looks back up at him through those long dark lashes and all of a sudden his mouth is so dry he can't swallow.

"Hey," she breathes.

"Hey yourself," he whispers back.

_Wow, Wes, try not to knock her out with your wit and intellect.._

Not that she seems to have noticed. On the contrary, she seems to have lost her train of thought entirely- her eyes have become unfocussed and she is slumping back against his shoulder again.

"Wha's happening?" she slurs, blinking up at him drowsily.

"It's too late for you to go home," he tells her. "You're staying with me tonight."

"Kay," she replies softly, snuggling further up against him so that his arm falls around her waist.

She doesn't say anything for a while after that, just stares vacantly around the shadowy room, but eventually she pulls her gaze back to focus on his face with what appears to be a great effort.

"S'late," she mumbles. "M'tired."

"D'you want to sleep?" he asks, voice betraying only a hint of his disappointment. Sure, he is tired too, but there's a part of him that can't help wanting to stay up with her- _for her_.

She hums her agreement, but before he can move reluctantly to help her up she is twisting in his arms, sliding lower until she finally settles on her back on the ground with her head nestled in his lap, face turned serenely up towards him.

Wes freezes, staring down at her with a mixture of awe and apprehension, not daring to move a muscle lest he disturb her. As if she could feel his gaze on her, her eyes flicker open again and she lifts her head to smile vaguely up at him.

"Sleep with me?"

Her tone is effortlessly light, her expression deceptively innocent and how can she do that, how can she say things like that and smile like she has no idea what she is doing to him?

"You can't sleep like that," he blurts out, thankful that the room is dark enough to hide the colour rising to his face.

"Why not?" the girl asks in that same disconcertingly sweet voice, and he stares at her in disbelief because there's no way she can be that naive, she has to know, so what is she-?

_Oh_, he thinks faintly as she drops her head heavily back into his lap, making him sit bolt upright, hands balled into fists, jaw clenched against the loud hiss spilling from his mouth.

And she doesn't stop there. Instead, she starts writhing around on the floor, shifting her head around, ostensibly trying to make herself comfortable but Wes sees the smirk on her face right before his eyes slam shut, and it's as if the image has been burnt on the insides of his eyelids.

"Because," he grits out, trying to focus on his words but it's hard, _so hard_ with all the maddening friction.

"There is a perfectly good bed right behind you and I will get you into it if it's the last thing I do!"

The girl stills abruptly.

When a few moments pass without her moving again, he opens his eyes cautiously to find her staring up at him with an indecipherable expression on her face. Her head is still nestled in his lap, her hair spilling out in dark waves against the grey denim, but she is finally still and Wes supposes he should be thankful for small mercies.

"Come on," he says firmly, taking advantage of her sudden compliance to ease her off his lap and up into a sitting position. "Up you go."

She has gone strangely limp, not moving herself but letting him shift her around, and although he can barely muster the energy to heave her to her feet he's just glad that she's humouring him, for now.

She remains docile as he steers her over to the bed, but when he tries to sit her down it seems her knees have locked straight. Confused, he looks up at her only to find her already looking down at him with an affronted expression on her face.

"What's wrong?"

"I can't sleep like this," she tells him in a tone that suggests this should have been obvious.

"Why not?" he asks when it appears she isn't going to elaborate further.

"This dress is new," she tells him in the same vaguely disdainful voice. "And wet," she adds, plucking at the material with an expression of distaste.

"Alright," he says uncertainly. "I'll see if I can find you something to change into."

He begins to move off, but it seems she hasn't quite finished yet.

"No," she snaps, suddenly furious. "I didn't wear this dress just to get out of it for nothing. Do you know how long it took me to pick this out? Do you know how long it took me to put this together?" she continues, making a sweeping gesture to indicate her smudged makeup, her crumpled dress, the shoes lying haphazardly on the floor where she had kicked them off.

"Do you know what it takes me every day to make myself up, make myself perfect and still be told it's no good, I'm no good, I'll never be good enough? " she goes on, louder now and wide awake. "Doesn't matter how hard I try, there's always someone better- Brit's funnier, Finn's nicer, Puck's scarier, Quinn's smarter, prettier, popular, _perfect_-

"Do you know what it's like being compared to her every day of your life and knowing that you'll never be better than her, never be the best?

"And I was so close," she hisses, the manic gleam in her eye making him shrink backwards as she rounds on him suddenly. "I was so damn close to the top, I was almost there and then _she _came along, transferred, just swept it and stole it all away from me.

"How is that fair? Why does she have it so goddamn easy?" she demands shrilly. She's starting to get hysterical again, and he's starting to get alarmed at the way her hands are clenched so tightly her fingers have gone white, the way she seems frighteningly close to tears.

"How come she gets to float through life like some fucking fairytale princess with her blond hair and her straight As and her popularity? Why is she the one that gets everything, the love, the admirers, the respect, when I work twice as hard as her and I still can't get past second best?

"I'm sick of it," she rants. "I'm sick of her, I'm sick of everything. I can't do this any more, I can't, it's too hard and I'm tired, _so tired-_"

Her voice falters abruptly and gives way, and a second later so does she. Her shoulders slump and she seems almost to fold up, shrinking into herself. As he watches, her anger crumbles and falls away until she is standing before him, shivering and alone, staring up at him with desperate, pleading eyes.

She is so radically different from the sullen girl he first spotted from his window, the defensive girl he sat with in his garden, the furious girl from only minutes ago- and yet she is the same. She is at once all of them and none of them, and if Wes hadn't known what to think before it's nothing compared to how he's feeling now.

"Come on," he says finally, taking her hand briefly to lead her over to the wardrobe. "Let's get you out of those clothes."

She lets out a strangled sound halfway between a giggle and a sob as he turns to root around in his cupboard for something she can wear.

A moment later, he almost crashes into the wall with the impact of a flailing arm connecting with his back. He doesn't turn around, assuming that she has just stumbled into him, but is startled when the hands start to wander, slipping around his sides to grope curiously at his chest, fingers scrabbling clumsily at the folds of his shirt, tugging it roughly off his shoulders.

The girl's hands drop lower now, and Wes finds himself being spun around and pushed up against the wooden panelling of the closet door.

"Wha-?" he blurts out, but is cut off by her lips before he can find the words and _oh_, _wow_, is his last coherent thought for quite a while.

Her hands are roaming again, smoothing down his undershirt before flipping over and slipping underneath the thin material, creeping up over his abdomen, fingers cool as ice against the warmth starting to pool in his stomach. She's peeling off his undershirt too now, the cotton bunching up as her hands travel higher.

He doesn't protest. Even if he'd wanted to he's not sure he'd remember how, because she's teasing at his lip with her teeth and it's as much as he can do to stay upright and not collapse at her feet. Her tongue darts out to swipe over the spot her nibbling has made tender, soothing it over before tracing the seam of his lips and he can taste honey and vodka and caramel on his skin in her wake.

She pulls away for the briefest of seconds, just long enough to yank his undershirt over his head and toss it to the ground before grabbing him again, her lips crashing down on his jaw this time, working their way across and down his neck. His head snaps back, almost hitting the wall, and she lets out a low hum of approval that is barely audible over the sound of his ragged breathing.

Her arms snake back around his waist, pulling their bodies flush against each other and he has no idea how she'd got her dress off without him noticing but _Holy Mother of God _she's managed it somehow andthe feel of bare skin and lace pressed close and tight up against his chest is almost enough to drive him insane.

He can't help but to lose himself in the sensation for a while- _Christ, and this is what she can do when she's drunk-_ but he is jolted abruptly back to reality when the hands begin to move south, fumbling with the buckle of his belt, tugging at the waist of his jeans.

His hands close over hers and he semi-reluctantly pries her fingers away.

"You're drunk," he tells her firmly.

Her face crumples. "You don't want me," she says in a broken voice. Her bottom lip is trembling and Wes feels like he has just kicked a puppy.

"The only thing I'm good for and you don't even want that," she says bitterly.

"Hey- no," he says quickly, taking her hand and coaxing her to look up at him.

"It's not that, it's- God," he exhales, running a hand through his hair in agitation before trying again.

"It's not that I don't want you," he tells her carefully, "because you're beautiful, and I'd have to be blind to miss it. Or gay," he adds as an afterthought. She smiles lopsidedly and he mentally applauds himself for cheering her up a little.

"But you're not thinking straight right now. You deserve better than a drunken hook up, because you're worth so much more than that."

She nods slowly and he smiles, relieved that he seems to have gotten through to her without causing major offence. Then she frowns abruptly.

"What about tomorrow?"

Wes blinks, confused. "What about tomorrow?"

"I won't be drunk tomorrow," she tells him seriously, her eyes suddenly focused and boring into his. "What happens then?"

"You're going to have a killer hangover," he replies at last, deliberately avoiding the question. Sensing that she wants to push the issue he stands quickly, grabbing clothes at random from his wardrobe and pressing them into her hands.

"Speaking of which, you should get some sleep. I'm going to head outside so you can change," he says, grabbing his shirt from the ground and already halfway out the door before she can object. "Let me know when you're done."

He manages to make it out into the hall without incident, closing the door quickly behind him and almost slumping against the wall in relief.

It's not that he doesn't like her, _God no_. Sure, she's a lot to take in at once, but the way her mood shifts and swings without warning is as fascinating as it is alarming. And yeah, Wes has had his fair share of dramas between the Warblers, his family and student mentoring at Dalton, but nothing he's ever encountered has anything on the passion, the terror, the fury he's seen from her tonight.

It's equal parts thrilling and terrifying and exhausting to keep up with, but he has no regrets, and if he had a second chance at tonight he'd do it all again in a heartbeat.

Well, there's some things he'd have done better. Noticed she was cold, gotten her inside sooner. Not said such dumb things- _hey yourself_, you're lucky she's too drunk to notice. And really, _let me know when you're done_? What is he expecting to do, tuck her into bed? Read her a story?

Lost in thought, he doesn't notice the door opening behind him until a soft voice breaks through his reverie.

"M'done."

He turns around and swallows heavily as his eyes fall on the girl standing in his doorway, looking dazedly back at him. The clothes he had given her are.. well, to say they're the wrong size would be the understatement of the century. The shirt- a black v-neck, an old favourite of his- is almost obscene in how tightly it hugs her body, and the Dalton soccer shorts look like the slightest movement would send them slipping to the ground.

She wanders back into the room and he follows automatically before he realises what he's doing. She has already cleaned up what little mess she had made earlier; there is nothing left for him to do but stand around awkwardly watching as she turns back the bedcovers and crawls in, pulling the blankets up to her chin and looking expectantly up at him.

"Well, good night," he says after a moment's hesitation.

He turns to leave, but he hasn't moved two steps before she calls him back, her words soft but sudden enough to have him frozen in his tracks.

"Stay with me?" she asks in a small voice.

He turns around slowly, sure he must have misheard- but no, she is staring up at him with a quiet intensity in her gaze that has him lost for words yet again.

He had thought Evie had prepared him for anything this party could possibly throw at him, but even she hadn't mentioned what to do when an unfairly gorgeous but drunk girl invites you to join her in bed. _Your _bed.

He knows he shouldn't, not after everything that's happened tonight, but-

"Just until I fall asleep," she adds, and she looks so tiny and vulnerable curled up amidst the mass of blankets that he couldn't possibly refuse her anything.

In hindsight, he never really stood a chance.

Before he knows what he is doing he is pulling back the covers and sliding in with her. She shuffles over at first to make room for him, but the next moment she is moving straight back, snuggling up to him and snaking an arm around his waist.

It's a little strange at first. He's never really done this before, shared a bed with anyone besides family (and certainly never with a stranger) but he finally manages to relax, even allowing his eyes to flicker shut. _Just for a moment_, he promises himself.

From beside him the girl lets out a contented sigh, her breath warm and light over his cheek, and he can't help but think it's kind of nice, just lying there with her.

He means to only stay until she falls asleep. He really does, but it's so warm and comfortable, and the tiredness has finally caught up with him. He is out like a light only minutes after lying down.

He never sees the tiny smirk on the face of the girl beside him as she too lets her eyes flicker closed, finally drifting off, lulled to sleep by the steady rhythm of his breathing.

* * *

_Okay, so this was meant to go up a while ago but I had a rather eventful last week (in which I turned nineteen, came down with gastro, passed out on a train and had a 2000 word psych report due) and aeurhwihurpwiuarhvwrhitwetw WORDS. Also, when I said this was going to have four parts? Big fat lie, because there's at least another two chapters after this. Oops. _

_As always, reviews and feedback win my eternal love (you think this is an exaggeration, but it's really, really not). Thanks for reading (:_


	5. It's a Blacked-Out Blur

It is six in the morning when Wes' body clock, used to the rigour and punctuality demanded by the Dalton schedule, first wakes him up.

From the second he opens his eyes, he can sense that there is something radically, unmistakably off about the situation. It's not the vague feeling of nausea in the pit of his stomach, because he remembers drinking at the party and expecting as much to follow. It's not that he seems to have fallen asleep in the skin-tight grey jeans Evie had made him wear the previous night, although he certainly regrets not changing out of them now that the studs are pressing uncomfortably into his hips, the denim scratching against his skin.

No, there is something else out of place this morning, but it takes several minutes of sluggish, half-asleep musing for Wes to figure it out.

_There is a girl in his bed._

Once he's noticed, he can't for the life of him understand how he could have missed it before. And there's certainly no way he can miss it- _her_- now. It's as if he has suddenly become hyper-aware of the situation, every sensation magnified, every minute detail pushed to the forefront of his notice and clamouring for attention.

The way her arm is resting up against his chest, her fingers curling loosely around a fistful of the thin material of his undershirt. The way her leg is hooked over his, pulling their bodies so close together that he is painfully aware of every contour of her body, of the rise and fall of her chest as she breathes. The way his own arm is draped hot and heavy over her side, the way the bare skin of her back feels beneath his fingertips, the smallest sliver of skin exposed by the way her shirt- _his shirt-_ has ridden up in the night. The way their lips are mere inches from each other, and it would be easy, _so easy _to just lean in and-

Dalton Academy has a reputation for schooling its students in _appropriate gentlemanly behaviour_ to the point where the student body practically radiates a certain dapper charm. But, Wes reflects, there are limits to how dapper and charming the average hot-blooded teenage male can be when confronted with a beautiful, semi-clothed girl in a bed- _his bed_- and he was precariously close to overstepping that line.

_He has to get out._

It's easier said than done, though. When he tries to pull away, her fist tightens around his shirt and the corners of her mouth turn down into a small frown. The more he edges away, the tighter her fingers curl until he has to prise them apart to get free. They are so close that he is sure she must be able to feel his every movement, and he is almost afraid to breathe too heavily in case the rush of air over her face disturbs her. Untangling their legs without waking her up is almost impossible but he finally manages to extricate himself, almost falling to the floor in his haste to get out.

He stumbles backwards, blindly, unsteadily, praying that he doesn't run into anything in the dark because at this proximity he's not sure she will sleep through the crash that would inevitably occur. His extended hand finds the wall and he feels his way around in the dark, edging his way along. He must be close to the door now, a few inches more maybe-

He stretches his fingers out behind him in the dark, groping randomly, and they brush against something, some material, only lightly but just enough to knock it from where it had been hanging. It's falling now, slipping from its hook with a rasp of cloth against metal and Wes whirls around instinctively, other hand swinging around, grasping blindly at the air in the desperate hope of trapping the material before it hits the ground.

He catches it- oh, he catches it all right, but the momentum sends his arm crashing into the door with a dull thud that she must have heard. He bites back a curse but it's too late. Even as he freezes, he can hear her beginning to stir behind him- the gentle, almost inaudible creak of the bedsprings, the whisper of sheets against skin.

He turns his head, slowly, cautiously, hoping he is imagining it- but no, she's definitely stirring and _Jesus Christ, he's done it now, she's going to wake up and then God knows what will happen but it's probably not good news for him. He has to get out, he has to get out now, before she wakes up and finds him standing in limbo, frozen there with one hand on the doorknob, staring at her across the darkened room._

With that thought he wrenches his eyes away, slams down on the handle, pulls the door hastily open. He takes two steps towards the exit- and stops.

He's got this nagging feeling that something's missing, like he's forgotten to do something, like there's one more thing that needs checking. One last look, he bargains with himself. One last look, just to make sure everything's okay, and then I'll go.

Taking a deep breath, he turns to look- but he can't look past her, lying alone in the bed. She's not moving any more, but still he is unable to tear his eyes away. A second passes, then five, then ten. He pauses by the door for so long, just standing and staring, that she begins to stir again.

Her movements at first are slight and slow. A stretch of her neck, a tilt of her head (_it is resting on his pillow now but he remembers the sight, the feel of it heavy in his lap, shifting, sliding, spilling_). She mumbles something, words half-formed, incoherent, too soft for him to make out (_he would have heard them if he had stayed, he had been close enough to feel her breath on his skin_).

A pause, and then she moves again. Her back arches, her leg curls up, her knee drawing the sheets into a peak as she rolls over. They pool around her body as she moves, rising and ebbing in rippling waves of linen (_that same leg was hooked over his only minutes ago, smooth skin against rough denim, her warmth still lingering on him_). Her arm extends, reaching out for someone, something, but her fingers close around empty air (_that was him she was reaching out to before, he was there for her then, should be there for her now-_)

He meant to only take a fleeting look, but a look turns into a gaze, and a gaze turns into a stare and it's last night in the garden all over again. He loses track of time completely- there _is _no time, just her in the bed and him at the door and nothing else, _nothing else_. _Just them_.

He's being stupid, a tiny voice at the back of his mind tells him. Standing there watching over her, almost as if he's waiting for her to wake up and catch him.

And she does. There's only a split-second warning- a momentary rustle of sheets that jolts him to his sense before she lets out a heavy sigh.

The spell is broken. He jerks upright as if shocked, backing away rapidly.

_He's risked enough tonight. It's time to leave, and this time he really does have to go._

He is out of the room before she has the chance to do any more than open her eyes, before he has the chance to second-guess himself, closing the door quickly behind him and slumping silently against it just as he had all those hours ago.

Gradually his heart rate returns to normal. His breathing slows, and the world slowly, slowly comes back into focus. After a minute, he becomes aware of something tangled in his hands, binding them together so tightly that he can't separate them. Looking down, he recognises the Dalton tie that must have been the cause of the earlier commotion, twisted and knotted around his wrists.

Suddenly tired, he loops the striped length once, twice around the handle of the door, securing it with a loose knot. He stares at his handiwork for a few seconds but his gaze is vacant, almost as if he is seeing straight through the red and black striped material before him. Then he turns abruptly, shuffling off along the corridor and downstairs, in search of somewhere to take refuge.

Allie had expressly forbidden him from entering her bedroom before she had left for camp, but this surely constitutes an emergency. And anyway, what she doesn't know won't hurt her..

His little sister's room is the epitome of girly kitsch, the floor carpeted in a garish shade of pink, her walls papered in posters of tween idols, her bed piled with stuffed bears and far too small for comfort. But it's familiar, and it's safe, and that's as much as Wes feels he can hope for right now.

* * *

_What else has she been missing?_

She stares wildly around the room, but nothing that catches her eye would seem to yield any clues. The walls are covered in posters, typical teenage things, singers, bands. She recognises a few- _Panic at the Disco and Queen amongst them_- but there are many more she doesn't know, the unfamiliar faces staring impassively down at her, watching, judging, and she has to tear her gaze away to keep looking.

Scanning the table, her eyes fall on a folded piece of paper lying beneath the emptied glass of water. She is standing before it in a flash, snatching up the note and uncrumpling it, skimming the contents.

_There's more Panadol in the drawer if you need it. The bathroom's across the hall _

_and there's food downstairs if you get hungry. We put your dress out to wash- I hope that's okay with you- but it might not be dry for a while, so if it's not here when you wake up feel free to borrow something._

The note is signed with an indistinct scrawl, and try as she might she can't distinguish the name. She throws down the paper, frustrated, cold, and no closer to finding out what- _or who_- she has done.

She has learned nothing, nothing that she can act on anyway. The promise of food is tempting, but there's no way she's going to go down there and risk running into someone. She's wasting her time here, and there's still so much she doesn't know- who this mystery guy is, what happened last night- hell, she doesn't even know where she is or how she's going to get home without a car, but she figures she'll work that out later.

Right now, she decides as her body gives a particularly violent shiver in response to the cold, she's got bigger things to worry about. _Like clothes_.

* * *

It is several hours later when he wakes again; the sun has hauled itself half-heartedly into the sky and is shining sulkily from behind a cloud, as if it too is recovering from last night. Wes' head is aching dully, his stomach grumbling and his limbs stiff from curling up in Allie's tiny bed- but his first thought on waking is _her._

He is out of bed in an instant, surging across the room and crashing out into the corridor before the moment of light-headedness has even worn off. He barrels up the stairs, his only concern reaching her before the other Warblers have a chance to disturb her- but when he rounds the corner at the top it is to find David and Sebastian already hovering outside his door, in the midst of a hushed conversation.

"It just seems unlike him," David is saying as Wes approaches. "You know how long it took him just to loosen up last night.."

"I didn't think he had it in him," Sebastian remarks with a tone that might almost pass for surprise, were it not for the fact that surprise was an emotion Sebastian considered to be beneath him.

"Nice to know how confident you are in my abilities, Sebastian," Wes says dryly as he comes to a halt behind the two boys outside his bedroom door.

David jumps at his interruption and at least has the grace to look embarrassed at being overheard, but Sebastian only shrugs.

"It's true," he says dispassionately. "It's not like you have girls falling at your feet to go out with you, not since-"

He breaks off, scowling and rubbing his arm where David has smacked him ("_We can't all be manwhores like you, Sebastian!_").

Rolling his eyes, Wes moves past them to push the door open. He pauses at the doorway, and David and Sebastian crowd behind him, craning over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of the girl still fast asleep on the bed inside.

"_Damn_," David blurts out before immediately clapping his hand over his mouth, looking abashed.

Sebastian does not seem to share his restraint.

"She's hot," he remarks, looking reluctantly impressed.

"I thought you were gay," Wes hears David wonder aloud behind him.

"Doesn't matter," Sebastian answers dismissively. "I'd still go there. Look at that body. Did you see those-?"

Wes steps back abruptly, shutting the door so fast that it almost catches Sebastian in the face.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Sebastian apologises, not sounding remotely sorry. "I didn't realise you were serious about her. I assumed it was just a one night thing."

"It wasn't- we didn't-" Wes protests.

David is staring at him contemplatively from where he is leaning against the wall, but Sebastian's smirk only widens.

"Sweet," he says, reaching for the door handle. "So you won't mind if I-"

"No!" Wes says loudly, stepping reflexively in front of the door to block Sebastian's path. "Just- just leave her alone, alright?"

"Why?" Sebastian asks, still smirking broadly and Wes has the sudden urge to punch the smug look off his face. "You don't want her, so-"

"Drop it, Seb," David interrupts unexpectedly, his eyes still fixed on Wes. When Sebastian begins to protest, he pushes off the wall and starts off down the corridor.

"What's for breakfast?" he calls over his shoulder. "I'm starving."

"Did someone say breakfast?" a muffled voice sounds out from the other side of the wall.

A second later, the door opposite Wes' opens and two heads pop around it: Andrew Sterling, Wes' closest friend outside the Warblers, and his younger brother Jeff, a freshman who had joined the group just in time for yesterday's competition.

"I'm about to die of hunger," Jeff complains dramatically, executing a mock faint into his brother's arms. Andrew rolls his eyes, heaving the still swooning boy back on to his feet with a shove that sends him careering off balance. David snorts as Jeff hits the wall and slides down to collapse in a heap on the floor, but Sebastian is still staring calculatingly at Wes' door.

Andrew steps over his brother's crumpled body into the corridor, smiling innocently.

"Someone said something about breakfast?" he inquires, and Jeff leaps to his feet at once, miraculously cured by the mention of food.

"Come on, let's get something to eat," Wes answers gratefully, turning back to Sebastian. "Coming?"

The younger boy looks like he is about to protest, but as he opens his mouth his stomach lets out an almighty, uncharacteristically undignified grumble, and the other four boys have to stifle their laughter at his expense.

"Alright," Sebastian scowls, leaving the door to follow them downstairs. "But you're cooking."

Sebastian may have been hard to distract, but he has nothing on Evie's persistence. If she was to ever find out about this she would not rest until she had extracted every last detail of what happened, so Wes is understandably reluctant to involve her. But it's just past noon now, and the girl in his bed shows no signs of waking, and he's starting to get worried.

He stands outside Evie's door for a good ten minutes, chewing his lip and debating on whether to disturb her when she makes the decision for him, stumbling bleary-eyed out of the room and almost crashing into him.

"Jesus, Wes, what the hell-"

He's not sure why she's the startled one- her long black hair is still mussed up from sleep, and together with the dark shadows around her eyes and the way her mouth is stuck in an awful gaping yawn, she's halfway to looking like that girl from the Grudge. But now is probably not the time to point that out.

"Seriously," she continues once she has recovered. "What are you doing outside my room?"

The thought is enough to sober him up immediately. Evie's eyebrows skyrocket up into her hairline as he raises his arm over which the red dress is draped and she catches sight of it for the first time. Her head swivels to look between him and the scarlet cloth in his arms, and she blinks rapidly as if wondering if she is still dreaming.

"Wes," she says slowly, finally looking up at him long enough to hold his stare. He immediately wishes she would start blinking again.

"Does this mean what I think it means?"

"Almost certainly not," he tells her firmly. Evie doesn't look particularly convinced, so he ploughs on hastily. "But I need to wash this. Help me out?"

He chances a glance back up at her, hoping that she won't be awake enough to question his odd request- but no such luck. Evie is staring at him with a surprisingly alert look on her face, her brow wrinkled in concentration as she tries to put everything together.

"But why do you need to wash a dress in the first place?" she asks. "Last time I checked, you didn't have any, so-"

"Look, I don't know," Wes interrupts her. "I don't know whose dress this is."

Which is technically true, although his sister doesn't seem altogether satisfied with this explanation.

"And I swear I'll tell you everything later, but right now I really need to wash this. So can you-?"

Evie is silent for a long moment, staring at him contemplatively, seeming to be sizing him up.

"That's a pretty big favour you're asking," she says slowly.

Wes sighs. "What do you want?"

Evie tips her head back, considering her answer for a second. When a devious smile starts to spread across her face, he knows he's in for it.

"Give me free reign over your Warbler boys for the day. Let me boss them around for a bit."

"I can't make them do what you tell them," he protests feebly.

"That shouldn't be a problem," she smirks, and Wes knows she is right. Her position as school captain of Crawford Country Day means that Evie is almost absurdly popular and, for reasons somewhat beyond Wes' understanding, gives her some immense sort of power over the boys of Dalton Academy. David is just one of the many students under her spell; even Sebastian admits a grudging respect for her.

"So you agree?" she prompts him.

"Alright," he sighs. Because really? It's not like he has any other options.

"Wow." Evie stares at him in surprise, not used to getting her way with so little effort. "You must be really serious about this girl."

Wes opens his mouth to protest. Pauses. Closes it again, shrugging in a helpless kind of way.

"Oh Wes," she murmurs sympathetically, reaching out to pull him into a hug. He leans into her, allowing her to rock him comfortingly back and forth for a moment, before she finally pulls away and slings an arm around his shoulder, beginning to steer him down the corridor.

"Come on," she tells him. "Let's get this washed."

* * *

There's no sign of her dress anywhere in the room, she soon discovers. It must still be in the wash, if mystery boy was telling the truth in his note. It's a shame, she thinks; that dress was new, and one of her favourites, but that's what you get for making dumb mistakes.

There's no way she can go out like this if the neighbourhood is half as fancy as she remembers it to be from last night, though. The top she is wearing is tight even by her standards and rides up with every movement she makes, while the football shorts are several sizes too big and hang low on her hips, threatening to slip off at any moment. No, she'll just have to work something out with what's in the room.

There is a black shirt hanging over the back of a chair at the end of the bed which she figures she can turn into a sort of shirt-dress. Buttoning it up and tying the sleeves around her, it reaches her mid-thigh- not ideal for the weather, but still considerably more modest than most of her own clothes.

Crossing to the wardrobe and surveying its contents, Santana is reluctantly impressed by the items on display. After a moment's deliberation, she pulls out a simple blazer, black with red piping, slipping it on over the shirt and pushing the sleeves up to her elbows.

Her shoes are still there, thank God, lined up neatly at the end of the bed. She slips them back on, straightens the jacket, takes a deep breath. There's no mirror for her to fix up her face in, and maybe that's a good thing.

She's stalling.

She has no idea why, because there's nothing here for her now (she pushes mystery boy from her mind, feeling oddly disappointed at the thought). Still, she can't help taking one last look around the room before she leaves, drinking in every detail- the faded posters, the rumpled blankets, the open wardrobe, the battered furniture- feeling strangely sorry that this could (no_, will_) be the last time she ever sees it.

Getting philosophical is a sure sign she's wasted enough time here.

Crossing to the door, she cracks it open and checks that the coast is clear before slipping silently out into the corridor.

* * *

It's almost five in the afternoon when Wes finally gets a moment to himself.

The Warblers have finally disappeared from the house, although thankfully not before helping to clean up the rather substantial mess from the previous night. After helping him out with the dress, Evie had held him to his promise, taking the opportunity to practice for her inevitable later career in world domination. Wes is pretty sure he shouldn't have been encouraging her, but it's hard to object to an army of starry-eyed, slightly dazed looking Warblers who are cleaning his home with an almost alarming vigour.

Besides, with his teammates preoccupied by Evie's increasingly ridiculous orders (he's pretty sure he caught them harmonising to the drone of the vacuum cleaner at one point), he could sneak upstairs to check on the girl in his bed unnoticed.

_She's still not awake. Is it normal to sleep for this long after a big night? How long is too long? What if there's something wrong? Should he be worrying?_

At least, he thought he had gone unnoticed, but as he was about to make his seventh exit to see if she has woken Evie had swept by, seizing his arm in a vice grip and forcibly dragging him away from the stairs.

"You want my advice?"

"No," he had scowled, tripping over himself to keep up as she pulls him along.

Evie continued as if he hadn't answered.

"Stop sneaking off to stare at her. You're acting like a creep."

"I- I wasn't-" Wes spluttered, flushing red. Evie raised a single eyebrow and he glowered, changing tact.

"But what if she wakes up?" he protests.

She shrugged dismissively. "Then she wakes up. I don't know, leave her a note if you're so worried, but stop hovering around your room all the damn time."

At that moment, David had materialised around a corner, grinning at them.

"Hey Evie, we're almost done with the main room. Is there anything else you want us to do?"

"Yeah, she had smiled, her exasperation evaporating so quickly it was almost alarming. "Take my idiot brother and see if there's any food left in the house, I think you guys might have eaten everything."

She shoved Wes lightly in David's direction, shooting him a significant look. _And don't let me catch you upstairs again_.

Once he'd finally managed to extricate himself from David's company, he'd left the hastily penned note on the table in his room (and the seven less hastily penned drafts shredded at the bottom of the rubbish bin). Evie had been waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs when he'd finally skulked down, and she had taken his arm and dragged him off again without another word.

Since then, he's been trying to distract himself from returning to her.

It's harder now, though; the Warblers are finally gone, and with Evie out for the day there's nothing left to distract him. With the house restored to its previous (comparatively) tidy condition and unable to think of anything more that might possibly need to be done Wes finally, reluctantly allows himself to relax.

He wanders out into the back gardening, collapsing on the grass and staring up at the clothesline from which the scarlet material of the girl's dress is fluttering limply.

_Of course, _he thinks wryly. There's no escaping her now that there's memories of her all over the house, lying in his bed, laughing in the garden, stumbling up the stairs, pinning him to the wall and forcing him to flee from his own room. And now this.

Sighing, he closes his eyes, lying back and giving in to the inevitable. It's not hard to go back to the events of last night: the feel of the grass under his skin, the cool breeze that is still blowing, it's exactly as it had been then. It's not hard to relive it, to pretend that the faint laughter of the children in the park down the road is coming from someone next to him, that the darkness of his closed eyes is the black of the night sky, that the tingling in his hands is from slender fingers tracing patterns over his skin rather than the grass brushing against his palm.

The wind whispers in the leaves of the trees overhead, whispers in her voice.

_Wes, she repeats softly, and he is suddenly struck by how right his name sounds coming from her lips (she never offered her own name, he realises)._

_Don't go, and that grip on his wrist, her hand on his arm, dragging him down. And those unblinking eyes, that unflinching expression, staring up at him._

_Everybody leaves me, she had told him, and hadn't he done just that? Hadn't he left her, hadn't he let her down when she needed him?_

_Stay with me, just for tonight. That was all she had asked, and he hadn't even been able to manage that._

He can't do this. He can't just lie here thinking about last night forever. It's in the past, it's unchangeable, and now he has to move on.

The dress on the line is dry, has been dry for a while when he finally stands, brushing himself off and stretching. He hesitates for a second, then takes it down from its hanger, folding it over his arm before heading inside.

_It's time to face the music._

He has to pass back through the living room to get upstairs, and he can't help pausing there for a moment to take in the scene. Everything from last night is gone; the streamers, the balloons, the music, the people, as if none of it had ever happened. It's like all the colour has been washed out of the scene, making the normally tasteful décor seem dull and lifeless in comparison to the vividness, the energy, the animation of his memories. The house looks exactly as it had this time yesterday, but instead of being familiar and comforting it feels distant, outdated. Yesterday feels like an awfully long time ago.

A flash of movement through the doorway to the atrium catches his eye, but it is a moment before it registers in his brain. When it clicks Wes jolts, swearing under his breath and starting immediately towards the front door.

He can't be sure exactly what he has seen but he has his suspicions, and as he comes skidding around the corner into the atrium his fears are proven right.

Because there, at the opposite end of the hall, dressed like a shadow in black, is the girl from last night. She's almost at the door, he realises, her fingers maybe two inches from the handle and _he has to do something, before she can just walk out of his life, he has to stop her._

His mouth opens automatically and he is speaking before he even knows what he is doing.

"Hey."

* * *

_4856 words hohohoho. I got a little carried away.._

_If you're wondering about Sebastian- I haven't actually watched half of season 3, but my headcannon is that Sebastian was a freshman at Dalton, but spent his sophomore year in Paris. Dalton doesn't usually do mid-year transfers, so Sebastian leaving partway through the year was the only reason Blaine was able to get in after the attack, and vice versa when he left at the beginning of s3, so the two of them never actually met (I have a looot of headcannon about s3 that I'll probably be writing after I actually watch it)._

_ALMOST DONE WITH THIS! And, just like last (every) time, it's already more than half-written, but with exams a week away I've got no idea when it'll be up. Hopefully quicker than this one was. As always, reviews and feedback are always welcome. They also guilt-trip me into updating faster. Everybody wins!_

_Thanks for reading (:_


	6. Do It All Again

"Hey."

Her hand is already on the doorknob when she hears the voice (_she remembers that voice_) ring out from behind her. And she could leave, she could just _go_, slip out the door before he can stop her (_she doesn't remember him stopping her_), run away from this place and never look back (_he apparently hadn't_).

But she doesn't.

Two inches from the door she freezes, her hand suspended in midair just short of the handle, her heart pounding in her chest, her thoughts going at a mile a minute.

There's something stopping her from leaving. It's ridiculous, because she has no right to be here, no reason to stay and yet she is somehow unable to leave, unable even to move from the spot.

The seconds tick by and it seems she has paused there too long, because the sound of soft footfalls echoes from behind her, signalling Mystery Boy's approach.

She can feel her heart beginning to race, her muscles tensing, the dual feelings of uncertainty and dread twisting and writhing in knots in her gut. She has no idea why she's uncertain, because it's pretty damn obvious how he is going to react. Standing here at the threshold, she has never been anything more than an intruder, in his house, in his clothes, in his life.

_Now you're in for it, Lopez. Pull yourself together. Turn around. Time to face the music._

Fixing her best seductive smirk on her face, she draws herself up to her full height and spins around, coming face to face with a startled looking Asian boy. Her eyes widen for a split-second as she takes in his features (_dark eyes, dark hair, and a low voice made just that tiny bit rough by alcohol_) and her stomach drops suddenly.

She remembers this boy.

* * *

The word is out of his mouth before he knows what he's doing.

He has no plan, no strategy, no idea what he's trying to achieve by this but somehow it's working. The girl could easily have made it out the door before he could get to her but instead she freezes, long enough for Wes to cross the atrium to where she is standing.

Just as he reaches her she seems to tense up before whirling around suddenly, her hair almost whipping him in the face as he starts backwards. Gone is the timid, vulnerable girl he had found in his garden the night before; in her place stands a fierce, proud, independent woman, smirking down at him as if he should be honoured to have her in his house. Even after the events of last night the change takes him by surprise, and for a second he wonders if it is actually the same person standing before him.

* * *

Asian boy has gone mute, staring at her with a slack-jawed expression of confusion and _God, this is so awkward, she should have just left when she had the chance._

"Can I help you?" she asks, and if her voice comes out a bit throatier than usual, well, she'll just blame it on the alcohol.

Her tone is imperious, he thinks, dripping with sarcasm and just that hint of roughness and Wes is totally floored.

"I, uh," he stammers after a moment. She fixes him with a piercing stare, and he almost shrinks under her gaze. "I've got your dress," he manages at last, holding it out almost as if offering up a sacrifice.

_Well, that was unexpected_. It is Santana's turn to freeze now, staring blankly between the boy and the dress in his arms.

_Come on, _her mind prompts her impatiently, _didn't you want that_? After a moment's hesitation she reaches out, almost involuntarily, to take the dress back. Their fingers brush, just the briefest moment of skin on skin and she doesn't know why but it's enough to make her arm jerk back reflexively as if burned.

"I- thanks," she says after a second, and her voice is different now, softer, oddly calm.

"Don't worry about it," he tells her. "It was no trouble at all."

"Thanks," she repeats, seeming to regain a little of her confidence now. "Uh-"

"-Wes," he finishes off for her.

She doesn't echo him this time, but he sees her lips form his name noiselessly and it's just as if she had.

"_Wes," she repeats softly, and he is suddenly struck by how _right _his name sounds coming from her lips and wow, he must be more drunk than he thought._

He realises that he has been staring at her lips for a moment too long, and has to cover hastily before she notices.

"How are you feeling?" he asks, genuinely concerned for her health.

"I'm- fine," Santana lies automatically. There's a hint of truth to it- the throbbing in her head has died down to an ache dull enough for her to ignore but the lurking hint of nausea remains, not helped by the may her stomach keeps lurching at irregular intervals.

"Fine," he echoes, sounding unconvinced but nodding politely as if he believes her. "And you're not hungry or anything?"

"No, no," she answers quickly. Too quickly, but it's true this time- her stomach is churning unpleasantly at the mere thought of food.

"Still recovering from last night?" he asks with a knowing smile.

She lets out a short, hollow laugh. "Understatement of the century."

He laughs softly with her, just for a moment, and it's warm and comforting and weirdly familiar. A second later he falls silent, but he's still smiling back at her and he looks so honest, so eager to please that she can't help but trust him.

"About last night," she begins with uncharacteristic uncertainty.

A strange look flickers across his face for a split second, but it is gone so fast she thinks she must have imagined it.

"Uh, yeah, last night.." he trails off, looking at her with an indecipherable expression.

"What happened?" she blurts out before she can stop herself.

He is silent for a moment (_ominously silent, she thinks_) as he seems to consider her question.

"How much do you remember?" he asks finally.

Frowning, she tries to summarise everything.

"Party. Garden. Drinking. You, I remember you," and she doesn't miss the way his eyes widen momentarily at her words. She leaves out exactly what she remembers about him (_stumbling up stairs, tugging off clothes, hands running over bare skin_) almost hoping she's just imagined it all.

"I found you in the garden last night after everyone else had left," he says at last. "It was late, and you were.. well, you couldn't really get home. So I let you stay here."

He leaves out exactly what the _staying _involved (_fingers cool as ice against the warmth pooling in his stomach, honey and vodka and caramel and the feel of lace on bare skin_). He doesn't want her to freak out, doesn't want to lose her, not now, not after everything they went through last night. Even if she doesn't remember half of it.

Santana frowns. While this explanation is all very logical and innocent- _well, that's exactly it_. It's almost suspiciously innocent, and she can't help but think that he's leaving something out.

"And we didn't..?" She trails off. She has no idea why she's so nervous about this. God, she sounds like a twelve-year-old with a dumb crush.

Mystery Boy- _Wes_-'s brow wrinkles. "We didn't..?" he repeats, sounding politely confused.

"We didn't, you know. Fuck."

If he is at all offended by her language or accusations, he barely shows it. He flushes a little and there's that momentarily strange look again, she's sure of it this time- but it is gone as soon as it appears.

"No," he answers in an oddly level voice. "No, we, uh- we didn't."

_That's.. almost too good to be true_, she thinks. Sure, she wants to believe it- it would save a whole lot of awkwardness if it were true- but she had woken up in someone else's clothes, in someone else's bed, and she was pretty sure she hadn't slept alone last night.

The girl is silent for a long moment, and Wes starts to worry. _Jesus, she knows, doesn't she? She knows he's leaving something out. Is she testing him?_

"I mean, you offered," he blurts out suddenly, and then flushes hard.

Her head jerks up at his words, and she's staring at him with a frighteningly piercing gaze. If Wes was a more fanciful person, he might have thought she was staring directly into his soul; as it is, he still shifts uncomfortably under the weight of her stare.

"But nothing happened," he adds lamely.

"I.. offered," she repeats, ignoring his afterthought. She gives him the once-over, _for show, or so she tells herself_, not failing to notice the way the neckline of his sweatshirt dips into a V, startlingly white against the deep tan of his chest, the way the grey skinny jeans he is wearing are deliciously tight, the way his Adam's apple bobs in his throat as he swallows heavily.

She doesn't doubt for a second that she might have offered to _him_, oh no. But _offering _is something she might do sober, if she's feeling particularly restrained. Drunk, she's pretty sure she would have been all over him.

Her eyes rake over his body, then back up again. He can feel his cheeks warming, his mouth going suddenly dry but he manages to stand his ground.

"Well," he says awkwardly. "You kissed me, but we stopped before we went too far."

She cocks her head to one side, her eyes narrowing. She's sure he's not telling her the whole story now, because _just _kissing people? Not really her style. If she's drunk enough to make out with a stranger, she's drunk enough to go all the way, and too drunk to stop.

And also? For her, there is no such thing as _too far_.

"You mean we made out, I stuck my hands down your pants and you freaked out?"

He lets out a startled bark of laughter before hastily covering it with a loud cough.

"Uh, basically, yeah."

She crosses her arms, surveying him critically. "How come? You gay or something?"

"No! No, no, no," he defends immediately. "It's just- you were drunk."

She raises an eyebrow. "So?"

"So it wouldn't have been right. You deserve better than- than that."

_You deserve more than just a drunken hook-up, _she remembers him saying_. But what about tomorrow? I won't be drunk tomorrow. What happens then?_

"Tomorrow," she remembers aloud.

His eyes widen, and he is silent for a moment before he manages a faint smile.

"Yeah, you did mention that last night. You, uh- you remember that?"

She looks up, meeting his gaze. "It's tomorrow. Now what?"

Santana prides herself on being good at picking up on other people's expressions- it's how she got so good at tearing people down- but nothing has prepared her for the flurry of conflicting emotions that flit across his face in the next moment. There's surprise and nervousness, definitely, but she could swear she sees shades of hope and doubt, concern and- unless she's mistaken (and she never is)- _longing_. But she barely has time to process anything before his features clear, and then settle into a painfully understanding smile.

"And now we're left with the aftermath," he jokes, his voice deliberately light. "The hangover."

Apparently it is the wrong thing to say. The light in the girl's eyes vanishes abruptly and she tears her gaze away, looking down and studying the floorboards.

"I should go," she murmurs.

He tries to fight back the rising feeling of disappointment but he's pretty sure it's written all over his face, plain for her to see if she were to just look up (_she doesn't_).

"Do you need a lift?" he asks instead, almost hoping that she will so that he can be around her for just a few minutes longer (_she doesn't_).

As soon as she rejects his offer she is kicking herself because _you moron, that would have solved half your problems. _But she refuses to do that, refuses to be dependent on someone who doesn't want her, someone who rejected her.

Because that's what it is, under all this drunken/tomorrow bullshit (_it doesn't explain the dress though_). He doesn't want her (_it doesn't explain why he stayed, and she's sure he did_) and she's just embarrassing herself (_so why did he look so disappointed just then? Why didn't he just let her leave?_)

She turns around and he's already there in front of her, moving immediately to open the door for her. _Of course he is_. It's another reminder of how he lives in a totally different sphere to her, one where guys are ridiculously polite and charming to girls, not because they want to get in their pants, but because it's just _what they do_.

_It's something she could definitely get used to_, she catches herself thinking, before she puts an abrupt end to that dangerous train of thought. _She's already made enough stupid mistakes for one weekend_. _It's time to go._

"Thankyou," she says instead, her voice coming out weirdly quiet. "For everything."

She flashes him one last smile, meeting his gaze for a second before forcing herself to turn again, taking the two steps past him to the door.

"Will I- will I see you again?" he blurts out.

She doesn't know what makes her do it, but it's like something inside her snaps.

There's no warning at all before she whirls around, grabbing twin fistfuls of his shirt and pulling him in close. Her lips crash down on his, fast and hard and insistent and it's sudden, but somehow not unexpected. It feels natural almost, an apt way to end this encounter and he falls into her embrace as easily and as readily as if he had known this was coming all along.

She doesn't deepen the kiss and he doesn't press her to. It's enough, she thinks, just his lips on hers, his hands in her hair, her arms snaking up to twine around his neck. She is struck by a sudden wanting, a wanting to _know_- what he likes, how he would feel beneath her fingers, the little noises he might make, how to bring him to his knees. How to prise open that polished exterior and take it apart, take him down to the bare, the raw, the primal, skin and bones and heat and desire. How it might be to have him in her life.

It's like a test, he thinks hazily, but there's no rules or right answers and all he can do is close his eyes and respond as best he can. There's no thought in it any more, no time for fears and doubts, and it's a good thing that his lips and hands seem to know what to do by themselves because he knows just as instinctively that this is his last chance to turn this ending into a new beginning.

She pulls away at last, stepping back from him and crossing her arms thoughtfully. Her tongue swipes over her lips again, savouring the taste of him- clean and fresh, with a trace of mint, a hint of salt and summer and boy. _Yeah, she could definitely get used to this._

She takes her time, staring contemplatively at him for so long that he starts to get nervous again. Then, without any notice, the smirk is back.

"You know what?" she says, already stepping back towards the door but the light is back in her eyes and as he slumps back against the wall he could swear it is dancing, laughing at him.

"Yeah, I think you will."

* * *

_AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH DONE I AM EXCITED AND SAD AND EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE!_

_Massive thankyous to you for sticking with this til the end, and especially to those who've favourite and alerted and reviewed YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST! This is the longest thing I've ever finished writing (probably), and I couldn't/wouldn't have done it without you guys. And if you've reached the end and still have any leftover thoughts/feels, I'd love to hear them (:_

_Next up,_

**Homewrecker**: "I have a girlfriend, Santana!" he protests weakly. "Never stopped you before, did it?" Five times Santana destroys Wes' relationships, and one time he saves her the trouble.

_and_

**A Matter of Pride**: When Sebastian returns to Dalton, he finds the world has moved on without him and a whole new hierarchy has established itself in his absence. How far will he go to win back what he has lost?

_Keep an eye out for those :P And in the meantime, thanks for reading and have a wonderful month! (:_


End file.
